French, German ministers want €10 billion EU security, refugee fund

PARIS — France and Germany should create a €10 billion fund to fight terrorism and improve Europe’s handling of the refugee crisis, or risk seeing EU members split apart on the issue, the economy ministers of both countries warned their respective leaders in an open letter Wednesday.

France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Sigmar Gabriel argued in their two-page letter that Paris and Berlin needed to show strong leadership at a time when fear of attacks and anxiety over an influx of refugees were threatening the European Union’s fundamental principles.

“There is a risk: that our countries respond in isolation and, worse still, that these crises incite us to take different paths,” the ministers wrote, referring to terrorism and refugees from war zones in the Middle East, Africa and central Asia.

The letter came hours ahead of a Franco-German summit in Paris on the fight against ISIL. It also came as French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told journalists that Europe was no longer able to take in more refugees and urgently needed to secure its exterior borders, or risk seeing the bloc fall apart, according to remarks reported by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Mounting pressure on EU countries and the revelations that one or more of the assailants in the November 13 Paris attacks came to Europe with migrants via Greece have spurred a backlash against open-door policies throughout the European Union.

The prime minister of Sweden, one of the bloc’s most welcoming countries for asylum-seekers, announced Tuesday that his country could do no more to help refugees and would revert to accepting the EU minimum.

To boost security and avoid EU states slamming their doors shut for good, Macron and Gabriel said France and Germany needed to stump up cash over the next three years to police the EU’s external borders and make sure that all entering would be properly registered; that member states share intelligence more efficiently to fight terrorism across the bloc; and do a better job of processing asylum-seekers in border nations.

Paris and Berlin would invest the money first, and other countries could follow suit depending on the size of their economies, the letter recommended.

“To finance these actions, France and Germany would create a fund with, for example, a 10-billion-euro commitment over three years,” the letter read. “This fund would be governed in a simple and efficient manner, and be insured by contributing states.”

After the Paris attacks Germany ruled out the possibility of creating a pan-European intelligence agency, arguing that this would amount to an unacceptable surrender of sovereignty.

Meanwhile France, a country which the ISIL terrorist group has repeatedly singled out as its number one foreign target for attacks, has had to shell out €2 billion for its security after the attacks, according to a preliminary estimate, and may be unwilling to spend more money to improve security in other member states.

Both Macron and Gabriel enjoy considerable freedom of speech in their respective governments and while some of their earlier proposals, like moving toward speedier integration among core EU member states, have received approving nods from their leaders, they have yet to be implemented.